@Alder......you are a interesting person, the way you look at things equals a form of zen from a person that's studied buddhism among a few other beliefs from that region that reach to the ground. You seem to be grounded to the mother, honestly, being grounded is something I don't like. The freedom of the other side and all it has to offer has always been apart of my life. I have a bit different outlook.....as above / so below, I am both light and dark, I see both equally as they are of the same origin. When one is comfortable they do not learn.

The expressions @Alder are expressions from no one. They are simply expressions that pass through. I, this expression is not personal, though anyone identified as a person would see something they would only relate to as a person. I, as an idea of being, with what could be called a personal history (his story), has no learning in the fields of study in Zen or any branch of Buddhism. That historical being was raised in a Christian home by a Protestant father and a Roman Catholic mother, and grew up going to church with my mother and brother while schooled by public education. With dyslexia and ADHD, I flunked both school and catechism. I like to say that I flunked out of the Catholic Church. I also say, "I was lucky, I had learning disorders."

Because of the learning disorders, I was not only a flunky, but a continual disruptive element in the classroom. I was too weird to have friends I could keep for long. My "curse" was to grow up extremely lonely and repeatedly excluded from the social orders of childhood. I put curse in quotes because seen from here and now, all is blessing. I went along a long path in the seemingly so of trying for every bit of strength I felt I had to be a "good person." The reflection I saw in everyone I perceived as other told me I had to be something different from who I so perceived myself to be. We could easily call that "Hell," could we not?

In every turn of my life, I took this portable Hell with me, always seeking to fit in, while ever the misfit. The Torture of Tantalus was what my personal self found in every place he looked. Every endeavor, school, the navy, each job, every social clique, romance, you name it, that person, however interesting, was just not wired quite right for it. Only on psychedelics I found aloneness was not my accustomed loneliness. I found aloneness was everyone's true state, as we would identify with our seemingly separate points of perception. Nearly fifty years ago, that psychelicized seeing started to save me, little by little, though it always faded between benchmark trips.

I could not get high enough, often enough, no matter how much acid I ate. I had to endure the resurgences of the lonely personal me. I think now that the seeing of self, if only for a night or three in my early twenties, kept me from suiciding my body, for it was the first unconscious inkling that I was not who and what I thought I was. I was not my sad story of, "I don't want it to be like this."

I lived a long story of seeking a better person in myself, with help along the way. I found a path of service, or Seva, though that word was even unknown to me. I went on this path for about 40 years, but there was always a believed in self there, so true Seva, or selfless service, was not what it truly was. No matter. What I had was a story of me, doing service. Many persons took advantage, and long-suffering me would get butt-hurt, for not being appreciated for my imagined sacrifices. Still there was in my heart, a gift to me from myself inside that path. But there was no freedom from the curse of the experience not lining up with the desire for a better story.

Thirty nine months ago, in another failed attempt, this time through a relationship with a young man whom I had made my sole heir, in exchange for his services of helping me build my dream of a community shop/mushroom farm co-op, my intended life fell apart. At age 67 I was left in the lurch, with a weakening body, and no prospect of anything but to continue to grow older and physically weaker, and never see my grandiose plans realized. My personal identity was up against its perceived loneliness and its imminent failure. One trusted friend whom I had met online some twenty years earlier had repeatedly urged me to "stay as the witness." I really didn't understand what that meant until then.

So, with my life utterly fallen apart in the appearance of the re-arisen curse, the thought, "stay as the witness," arose, as I was walking back one morning from my mailbox. At that instant, my seeing left my eyes and seemed to be looking over my own shoulder, looking somewhat down on my body from up and behind. I saw myself walking up my road and in that seeing, saw that everything about my life story that I had believed to be the truth of me, was just its story, a story and no more. I could see in that instant that the story could be told a million different ways and none would be what is. There was no truth to it, no matter how one might line up the facts of it.

Nothing had ever escaped that witnessing which I now found myself to be. I saw that witnessing was more true than anything I ever thought about it. I, as the witness, was there before anything could arise in thought, memory, or projection. I could see that this was what is called, "waking up." What comes after that is a choice to stay awake and to remain present, or to create a new dreaming, a new story. This is a critical point, and something that had to be learned in the past thirty nine months, and continues to be the choice. Tossing away the story of the curse will mean nothing if replaced by more story, even if it's a seemingly better story.

We can believe our stories to the point where we will stamp our feet and scream bloody murder if anyone should doubt us. Seeing the stories for what they are, and finding the honesty to see we know nothing beyond the stories, is the only ticket to our innate freedom. Who is the "I" that has the "ability?"

Inside Richard Bach's book, Illusions, there is another book called, The Messiah's Handbook. The way this inner book works is, the prospective messiah who uses it simply lets the book fall open to a page and reads what it says. One of the pages in that book says this: "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours."

Forgive this stream of consciousness style with which I express. If you find anything there, great. If not, no matter. I do not intend to push any river along its course. This would never be needed.

I like you Alder, you are a sound being with advice of a sage, although I am younger in this human form, you and I seem to think alike when it comes to being a being.
I've been told by many, "I am a old soul." To this day I can't quite figure that out but, I guess I know what it means to some extent. I will go as far to say this is my first time here on this ball we call earth and I don't like it, it's not like the other "places" I have seen or been.

I have always felt that all I am is a witness, a witness to what has been, what is, and what will become, the latter of which is always rotating in it's own way as it is a area that can not be known unless it involves the "self" to which then one becomes as "they" see fit in the time "they" want it to become.

The "I" is not always the "I" that I am. I wrote a poem many years ago that was called the "I am concept", of course I am not the I, I was then, nor am I the I that I will be, for that changes like time, it always moves and flows.

We are beings of energy, some call it light, some call it other names, even then these words make no sense and have little meaning when the words are interpreted differently by each energy that is what we call ourselves...."human"
"We", souls, humans, energies are inter dimensional travelers. The planet we know as earth is not our true home, what and where that home is.....well who really knows.

It will never matter what anything is called, or how it's interpreted. It is what it is, or perhaps, isn't what it isn't. If there is no place to go, then there's nothing that will have to travel. As nothing describable, without any attribute even to consider describing, no young nor old anything, I have ceased to limit my being in any way. To do so would be folly -- pissin' into the wind.

If one were to ask what I am, I might even say, "I am you." We can let go of saying what this or that is. When all which is not the entirety of what we are is let go of, any possible descriptor of self dropped, the Self that is might be discovered.

We can spend lifetimes telling the Tao, and all what has been told will not be the Tao.

@ Skywatcher, You do know where I am coming from, I use to have ways to turn it off or "safe zone" but the ones I used don't work anymore and any others I have done do not work. Some of them demand to come inside to be heard and I will not allow that, I know what can be behind the mask, hence the salt, sage, and mirrors. The ones outside when I do go outside stare as if I am out of place or some other reason I can't quite figure out yet but sometimes they are a bit more vocal towards me, especially the ones that seem to
@ Spooner, these experiences with people minus close family like wife and kids, I just see colors around them. And it happens with animals, I only get it from living animate creations.
I'd just like to find a different, better way to control it, ya know, shut it off when I want, need, have to, I went out today for about 2 hours and I hated it, being where other people are it's like seeing , for lack of a better phrase, rainbows around people, not to mention the ones that follow.......fuck man I sound like a fucking lunatic, I refrain for now.

Alone? No fucking way man.

I have a similar "gift", or something enough like it that we can call it the same thing.. I don't see others with people, but I see their "auras".

I hate calling them auras because people associate that shit with something like a mood ring. Everyone I've ever tried to tell ever: "Ooooh, fun! What color am I? Teehee." Me: "You do not want to know what I see, I promise."

No one (ok, almost no one) wants to know who they really are, or rather HOW they really are. They only pretend to because of the way others will view them for it. In reality they are terrified of seeing what happens inside, and the only thing that scares them more is the idea of someone else seeing it..seeing THEM.

If you see the people with them you are likely meant, in some cases, to reveal certain truths to people which bind their identities to their past. To their guilt. To their shame. That is not an easy or pleasant thing to do, but you must follow your compulsions to speak, or you will certainly go mad.

What I see there aren't words to describe, so I usually don't try, but I understand your frustration, I understand your agony, your lonliness.. I don't know any enchantments, or barriers, or powerful stones that can help you, but if I can't help at all at least I can commiserate...

All I know is that if you run from it, it will haunt you. If you face it, it will hurt you. If you decide to give up and die it may not even be the respite you imagine, because this sort of soul is deeper than the graves our bodies will rot in.

We, our kind, are here for a purpose. An unpleasant one perhaps, but there is no escaping what you are. There is no suppressing your nature, nor would you enjoy the feeling if there were. You can no more control your gift than the wind can decide where it is needed and blow only then and there...

It will never be easy to exist as we are, but it can be meaningful.

It can be worth it.

The purpose of the message we carry is not fit for everyone to hear at any time, and the best you can hope to control it is to only speak of it when compelled by your purpose. Our voices are for certain specific people, at very specific times. Learning to "control" your gift is realizing you are not in control. You are a catalyst that makes the human spirit possible. The mirror revealing the self. The universe reaching out to touch it's own face.

In the world we live in now, people won't thank you for realizing your purpose, they won't honor you as they may have in ancient times, but at least they won't burn you for it either.. I'm sorry for your pain brother. Please follow your purpose and the voices of the dead will beseech you rather than besiege you.